Sneak peek of our booth

Our iLoveToCreate booth theme for CHA is driving us crazy with anticipation! Here is snippet of one of the decorations...

MAYA IN THE MOMENT TEEN CRAFT: School Spirit Bangles

I only have FOUR months of high school left in my whole entire life.  I'm excited, but I'm also really sad at the thought of not seeing my friends every day. The football games and the chorus and band concerts, etc.

Chubby Girl Delite: Tamarind-covered green apple!

Wall art on the fly: Part two!

Here are the posters colored!
The show was a blast! Jose, Annette and Theresa from CJ's Angels helped me set up and run the exhibit area, while I worked the craft demo attraction. I met and hung out with some amazing friends and artists!

We not only wrote orders for art and the Crafty Chica product line, but by the end of the show, we had three offers for representation! I'm not even going to try and process any of it because now I'm geared up for CHA, which starts Friday!

I'm super homesick, thank goodness for Skype or I would be a mopey mess! I miss Patrick, the kids, my sister and even the doggies so much!

Wall art on the fly, part one

The night before the California Gift Show started, I found out that I had a 20 foot wall to decorate for my make-and-take craft area. My only resource at that late hour was a local office supply store. I bought some foam poster boards, markers and drew four images. At first I planned to color them, but then decided to leave them pretty much blank so the convention guests could do the job. Here is the 'before' picture!

Love Affirmation Standing Valentine

 It's never too early to celebrate LOVE for Valentine's Day! And who says Valentine gifts have to involve heart-shaped boxes or paper cards? How about a little dimensional action? This is a cute little affirmation shrine to keep at your desk to remind you of true love and best of all, friendship! You can make a bunch of these to give as red hot gifts or just for your special 'friend'.

Last night of Maya's play!

Here is my sister Theresa and DeAngelo with Maya after the last night of the school play. Maya was Arvida in Guys and Dolls. I saw the show Wednesday and cried when Maya sang her solo, she was so good. She sang as dainty as a little bird,yet powerful too. I'm so proud of her! Hope to have video up soon!

Update from the California Gift Show!

Going good, mets lots of retail buyers, sales reps and other exhibitors. We have one huge space at the L A Mart, and at the convention center we have a craft demo area. We've written a few orders, but the biggest heartpounder came from a direct lead/interest for a greeting card line. So we'll see what happens. I've learned to stay calm, be cool, work hard and let it unfold as intended. Deep breath!

A tip for your craft table!

LINK
Felicidades,

New crosses!

These are two of the new items we're debuting at the California Gift Show today! All made with Crafty Chica paints and glitters, of course! It feels AMAZING to have a complete package - to say I embellished this and even formulated the paint and mixed the glitter colors!

I have to give a shout out to the woodworker artists who provided the bases. The wood crosses were made by my son's godfather and the hearts were made by Jose at CJ's Angels! They each put a lot of heart and soul into their craft and that makes for an all around better product, don't you think?

If you are an artist looking for wood bases, check out your local craft listings on Craig's List or other places for local woodworkers. It's a great way to support local artists and crafters! It adds more value to your work to say it was 100% made in your city or neighborhood!

Happy Friday to you!

Felicidades,

CRAFTY CINEMA: Country Strong-inspired Cowboy Hat

Country Strong is a frothy soap opera of a tale – complete with the glitz and glamour of the country music stage. 

CRAFTY CINEMA: Secretariat Saddle Bag

 When it comes to female underdog empowerment flicks, Secretariat ranks high. Based on a true story, Diane Lane plays Penny Chenerya, a woman who must take over her father’s stable when he becomes ill.

How to find your own signature style!

You have a creative spirit and a head for business. You want to jump to a higher level, get noticed and stand out. But how? But what can you do to draw attention that will catapult you to superstar status?

Sharpening your signature style is a good way to begin.

Motivational Bookmarks

Use leftover scrapbook paper to make motivational bookmarks.

It's always the season to read, but some people need a bit of nudging. Why not make up a batch of colorful bookmarks to provide some motivation? I love to buy books as gifts and I make these to insert inside the front cover. It's a nice way to show how excited you are for the recipient to take time to READ!


I use scrap pieces of scrapbook paper, then print out the quote, use an Aleene's® Original Tacky Glue Stick to affix it, punch a hole at the top and add ribbon or yarn. Super easy and who knows? It could change someone's life!
 

Felicidades,

20 years later and we finally get a second chance!

I'm not sure how many of you reading this know the story of how my career in crafts came to be. I'm talking before the craft column in the newspaper. You can read about my drama-filled crafty kickstart here.

Our Chicano Pop Art booth at Scottsdale Center for the Arts. It was some kind of festival, 1993.

Basically in the early 90s, Patrick and I made a gob of crafts and our line was picked up by two sales reps. They took our samples to the New York Gift Show and the California Gift Show and wrote up wholesale orders from retail buyers. We then had to make and ship hundreds of pieces to fulfill the orders. Back then, no one knew about Dia de los Muertos, Frida was still an underground artist icon, and you had to go to Mexico to score a Loteria game, much less a luchador mask. We used all of those themes to make everything from flower pots to magnets to jewelry. We had zero competition and our little Phoenix home turned into a manufacturing plant. We ended up with over 300 accounts all over the country, loads of press, and... had no experience to handle any of it.

Back then, there wasn't a craft community of any sort, no resources for artists of our type. We weren't doing gallery shows, we were making and selling our art wholesale to stores. No Internet or PayPal.
 
The nightmare of that experience is what motivated me to work at the newspaper - anything to get away from painting batches of wood boxes, crosses, etc.

Even though I know we've come a long way, it has always bugged me that we failed with that amazing opportunity. Yes, we survived off of it for a few years and it got our art and faces exposed far and wide, but we ended with a crash and burn. It almost killed our love for creating art. We often talk about what we would do different if we ever had the chance to have our work seen at the gift trade shows again. We have always had our art as a lifeline, but we stopped taking wholesale orders, instead we only do online sales and vend at four events each year.

Fast forward to last September. I was a speaker at a creative event and after my presentation I was approached by a design team of a very large giftware manufacturer about developing a line of Crafty Chica home decor items.

Once I arrived home, I immediately zoomed over pictures of what we made twenty years ago - our dream line! It sold great then, so it should do great now, right? I also sent sketches of what I thought they wanted, what I thought would sell, what I thought was trendy. I was 100% geared up to enter into the gift industry again! This time we would rock the party because instead of handmaking every item, we would design one and then have the rest manufactured.

Well, a couple months later, alone in a my hotel room in Fresno, I received the sad news that the new giftware line wasn't going to move forward after all.  I sat on my bed and cried, no - it was more like sobbing! I wanted it so bad. I couldn't understand why the universe would send this to me and then have it nose dive.

The next morning I woke up with a new attitude. I called Patrick and we gave eachother pep talks. It was an honor to be considered by such a big company. It served as proof that we had somethign special, we just needed to give it carinos - TLC. We have so many awesome projects going, there was no reason to be bummed. We decided to make a New Year's goal to design a NEW line of artful home decor items. I felt excited again! 

We realized that living off of a past achievement will not move you forward. It's like the band that had one big hit and milks and stretches and rides it out until the magic is gone and people are sick of it.

I knew exactly what my mistake was in sending those pictures. They were based on the past. A new fire lit my creative spirit to push myself to create fresh art. All this month, every night almost, I've been working on making my own little Crafty Chica giftware line to sell in our Etsy store.

Positivity Portraits: "Coffee is the buzz of life."

Well, guess what happened?

Through my amazing friend Andrea at Handmade Galleries, I was invited to be a part of The California Gift Show! Not only will I be demoing, writing orders and introducing new customers to the Crafty Chica product line, I'll also be debuting our new art line!


I have no idea if I'll even write up one order, but I'm going to go, have fun and soak up the experience. This feels like our second chance, this time on our terms. I know exactly what not to do and what to do. That will be in a future post for all of you enterprising artists and crafters out there!

Here is the takeaway from this that I want to share with you, and it can be used towards anything from business to weight loss to bettering yourself:

- Create from your heart, go with your gut instinct, even if it means starting all over, taking more time. The magic comes from loving what you do. Like that saying - "You have to love it enough to do it for free!"

- Don't go for the easy. Easy comes and goes and doesn't have much value. The hard stuff is what is golden and longer lasting. In my case, it was easy to send pictures of what we already made or what I thought would be a sure sale. The UNIQUE stuff is what goes. No matter where you get your inspiration from - put your own mark on it to make it 100% your own.

- Appreciate that chance of going up to bat. Even if you strike out or only make it to first base, at least you had the chance. Learn from it so you can work your way back to that opportunity again.

- Cry for one night when you get rejected and then wake up and shake it off, move on. Life is not always green lights. you have to accept the yellow and deal with the red in order to get to your destination.

- Take control of your feelings, actions and thoughts. Don't gripe, be jealous of others or play the victim. YOU rule!

- Push yourself to try something new, learn a new skill, reinvent yourself. This will invite change and bring opportunity.

- If you ask for something to come your way, you better be braced, organized and ready!

- Appreciate your past successes, but don't let them define you or weigh you down. If you did it once, you can do it again, and again, and again! Maybe in different ways, but you can!

I leave for Los Angeles on Thursday for this amazing adventure. The show opens Friday and ends Monday. Please wish me luck! Patrick will be at home, holding down the fort. I'm nervous, but even more excited.

As soon as the California Gift Show ends, CHA starts! Just wait until you see what we have going on at iLoveToCreate! I'll post pictures on opening day of the convention!

I'll be in L.A. for two weeks. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to blog. I'm also working on my book outline for my third novel. 2011 has really started off with a BANG! I'm ready!!

Yikes, it is almost 3 a.m., good night!! Hugs to all of you!

Edited to add: We've had our online store for our art since 1995,  and we always strive to design new items. We've been successful at it because we've kept it going all this time at a very steady pace! The biggest difference between now and the early days? We pretty much ONLY use our own original images.

Felicidades,

THE CRAFTY CHICA, KATHY CANO-MURILLO TO BE FEATURED AT THE CALIFORNIA GIFT SHOW®

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:

Victoria Kent

Public Relations

MMPI

Phone: 312.527.7508

E-mail: vkent@mmart.com

HANDCRAFTED CELEBRITY THE CRAFTY CHICA, KATHY CANO-MURILLO TO BE FEATURED AT THE CALIFORNIA GIFT SHOW®

New items in our Etsy store!

We've been very busy here in the factory art studio! Today I uploaded some new items in our store. I had so much fun making these. The bracelets and the shrines I made while watching Fried Green Tomatoes. so know that they were all made with lots of drama and love!


Felicidades,

Keep calm and glitter on

Made using the cool Keep Calm-o-matic!. Make your own :) http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/

Felicidades,

Sharpen that chalk!

 This is a nifty tip I learned from my friend, Cheryl. Use your scissors to sharpen your chalk to a sharp tip. It makes drawing so much easier and gives you more control. Forgive me if everyone already knew this, I didn't. I think it is a brilliant idea!

Felicidades,

Mantastic craft: Beer Tab Necklace

This is a mantastic craft straight from the  Dogtown hood!

Our friend, Little Rick, came to help us trim our trees last weekend and he arrived sporting this ultra fancy necklace he constructed out of his beer tabs. That's a lot of beer!

Little Rick is the type of person to have company, treat them to a cold one and then sit back and talk all night while barbecuing a feast. He is a long time friend of ours and I love that he is so creative!

Here he is sporting the necklace! It looks like he snipped the ends to connect all of them. I'll make sure to get a step-by-step next time he comes to our house!


Felicidades,

Pause for a prayer.

Today's blog post is dedicated to the victims of this past Saturday's shooting in Tucson. Such a horrible, unnecessary, senseless tragedy. Here at La Casa Murillo, we are still keeping a candle lit, still praying for strength for the families, the community and our country.

It has been a very emotional weekend for us here in Arizona. I've felt lightheaded all weekend. The tears of confusion, disbelief, sadness and anger are on constant rotation. It's painful to see my community going through these difficult times. All I know is that no matter where we reside, we have to pull through, keep the faith, work hard, be good to one another, have empathy and compassion for our difference of opinions, and be respectful.

We're all in this together. We need to work together for peace and justice.

We owe that to the victims and their families.

Please send prayers to them too.



Felicidades,

MAYA IN THE MOMENT: Flower Power Magnetic Calendar

The best way to start the new year is with a lot of happy colors! I got this magnetic calendar for Christmas and after I hung it in my room, I knew it needed something crafty done to it.

 

I looked through my mom's craft supplies and gathered all kinds of little things that I thought would be easy to glue down around the border of the calendar. The best things are the ones that are flat on the back. At first I was going to glue all kinds of things, but settled on a flower and button theme.

I used two glues: Aleene's® Original Tacky Glue® and Aleene's® Platinum Bond® Glass & Bead Slick Surfaces Adhesiv.

First you want to set out the things all around the frame until you like the arrangement. Then you can start gluing them down, one by one. Be patient and let it dry before trying to hang it up! I made mine and let it set over night because I glued a lot of things on there as you can see!

First layer of buttons glued down!

The board came with magnets and of course I had to decorate those too. I used some silk leaves to go with the flower theme!  Now I can plan out my exciting year surrounded by cheeriness!

Felicidades,

INSPIRATION FRIDAY: Traci Bautista Art Video

LINK

I love videos that show artists working on a project from start to finish. This video from Traci Bautista is as entertaining to watch as it is inspiring! I love the finesse and gracefulness of her lettering style, you can tell she has been working at it, it's perfect. Watch it and then give it a try!

By the way - Traci is our guest instructor this year on the Crafty Chica Cruise!

From Traci about the video:

this video shares my technique for journaling my 2011 goals & mantras...see blog post here:http://kollaj.typepad.com/kollaj/20

­11/01/artjournaling-daily-2011-personal-­mantras-goals.html

part of artJOURNALING daily series by traci bauista. a year long blog series of creative prompts in painting, collage, writing, photography, doodling, sketching and inspiration for your art journals and sketchbooks! follow along at: http://kollaj.typepad.com/kollaj/art-journaling-daily.html

Felicidades,

Basecoating a leather bag with my beloved Tulip Soft Paints!

I used to use acrylics for EVERYTHING, including painting purses. Once I started working for iLoveToCreate a few years back I was able to experiment with all the products and became a devotee of Soft Paints. Granted, I never bought them before because I thought of them as a splurge item. Now they are a main staple, and I just found a new use for them today!

Here I'm painting a leather bag. I collect these Mexican bags and paint them (not all of them, some I keep in original condition). In the photo below, you can see how much I get into the process!

 

When I used acrylics on the purses, I had the problem of the paint scratching off, it seemed to rest on top of the surface, even if I glazed over it. And it cracked.

This is the first time I've use Soft Paints on my purses. I've used them on vinyl, canvas, cotton, velvet and suede, but not leather!

It goes on like butta! The Soft Paints are formulated for fabric and they pretty much embed into the surface, like a silk screen almost, and they dry to a semi-gloss finish and are super flexible.  I don't mean to sound like a commercial, I'm just sharing the love!

I got so excited about how yummy the paints worked on my leather bag that I had to set down my paintbrush, get up from my art table and come over here and share this with you! I can hardly wait to see what the end result looks like! This is for one of my upcoming Crafty Cinema projects - stay tuned!

Hey - I wonder if you can guess what movie this bag is themed for?

Felicidades,

Revamped ChicaWriter.com site!

One of my goals for this year was to revamp my ChicaWriter.com site and update more frequently. As if I have nothing else to do, right? The first mission was to switch it from SquareSpace to Blogger. It's not that SS was bad, but I'm so used to Blogger, I can post with my eyes closed. And I need that kind of ease because my schedule is loaded!

I love reading books, as well as writing them. I felt it was time to amp up my book blog and take it serious. Not only are there tips on publishing and writing (I'm posting as I learn and grow), but also book suggestions! I'm still in the process of posting book reviews from this blog, but there is a lot of content loaded already.

If you are an avid reader of contemporary women's fiction, as well as craft books, come join me over there! If you want to share a book review, or a personal story about why you love books, memories, etc, I'll be more than happy to post it!

And if you want to peek at what is going on over there, simple look to the left hand column on this blog to see the latest ChicaWriter blog post.

Felicidades,

From sketches to paintings!

I busted out some sketches last weekend and even went so far as to paint a few of them! If there are any experienced painters or illustrators reading this, I would LOVE feedback to help me get better!

 She still needs a background!

 This one is a fail. Instead of sketching her face with a pencil or chalk, I used a permanent marker and messed it up. Now no paint will cover it. I'm going to try and repaint her face on canvas and glue it on. That might look kind of cheesy though. I'll have to think about this one! any ideas?

 Experimenting with profiles!

This is inked and I added her skin. It trips me out how they evolve from pencil sketch to finished painting. I'm trying to branch out into learning bodies and movement. I burn through erasers as much as I do Starbucks VIA packets!

 Before and after.

I made this one from personal experience.

Felicidades,